


Decisions

by irismustang



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irismustang/pseuds/irismustang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson's accustomed to making decisions. The one to not give up on Clint is the easiest decision he's ever made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> C/C Bingo #24 - Making Emergency Decisions for Each Other.

Hard decisions were a daily part of life for Phil Coulson. He mentally compiled a list of pros and cons, took a number of variables into consideration, and made the logical choice, the tactical, practical choice. If sometimes those choices kept him up at night, questioning if they had been the right choice, no one knew it.

He made the choice that was best for the team, best for SHIELD, best for all those involved. He followed the rules, obeyed protocols, memorized all medical records for those directly under his supervision, and half of those who weren't.

He knew what usually happened, in cases such as these. Agents with too many injuries, too much damage, agents like the one currently comatose in the medical wing, rarely made it.  
SHIELD policy was, after a certain point, to cut their losses. There was a point where they just had to say they had done what they could and it was time to move on.

Phil couldn’t believe that it was time yet. 

For now, he fought anyone who said that it was time to just let go. The paperwork he and Clint had signed, passed back and forth in a simple manila folder with a stack of other forms Clint had predictably refused to touch, meant more to him than any SHIELD doctor, any opinion that said Clint wouldn’t wake. 

They had seen a man return from a frozen state after seventy years, fought gods and aliens and everything in between. He could not, would not, just let Clint go without a fight, not when Clint had fought for him, for the world, so many times, against worse odds. 

This was not Fury’s decision, not Hill’s, was not for anyone else who dared to think they possibly knew what was best for Clint. It was his, and his alone, and the easiest decision he had ever made. 

He had placed his life in Clint’s hands countless times. This time, he would keep Clint’s in his.


End file.
